Understanding
by Diane Langley
Summary: Lisa may think she understands Dean Winchester and the life he brought stumbling into hers, but she has a lot to learn. ONESHOT. Alternate exploration of Episode 6.06.


For one selfish second, Lisa wished Dean had died. The thought was so dark and untrue that it made her stomach hurt even after it passed. His death was something she could mourn, but to lose him this way, to a phone call where they spoke a little too much harsh truth and much too little optimism. They had broken up as couples everywhere are wont to do. After hanging up, she had played Monopoly with Ben, folded a load of laundry, and cooked dinner. Macaroni and cheese, homemade and loaded with colby jack, was her son's favorite, and he ate so heartily she was able to forget her heartache and her fear of how to break the new reality to Ben. After she tucked him into bed, she headed to her bathroom for an evening shower. The yellow walls, painted right after the move as she tried to make a beautiful place for Dean to come home to, mocked her, but she ignored them and grabbed an orange towel.

In the mirror, her face was lovely. She knew she wore her thirty years well, skin still soft and supple, hair still dark, sleek and grey-free, but her eyes betrayed her tonight. They were sad. She peeled out of her clothes and looked in the mirror again, noting the c-section scar across her tummy, soft but still shapely. There was no reason she could not go out and meet the love of her life in some perfectly normal man, someone who would throw footballs with Ben and take her to bed in the evenings. Dean had never even said he loved her; she had thought he was going to many different times. Once, after an impromptu dinner of grilled cheeses, he had gotten up from his seat at the table and walked around to her chair, placing his hands on the curved back. He had looked right into her eyes for thirty seconds, long enough that Ben finally asked, "What are you doing, Dean?" Dean had smiled, his eyes warming, and kissed her softly: "I'm looking at your mother the way I hope you'll look at your girl one day." In that moment, she had been certain he was going to say he loved her.

Before stepping into the shower, she opened a drawer under the sink and pulled out a revolver. Dean had kept it there, setting it on the windowsill just beside the shower before he got in, and now that she knew he was not coming back, she needed to do the same. She knew what was out there in the dark in a way even more accurately than after the shapeshifter struck their town, and she needed to keep her son safe. Like frozen fingers had slid down her spine, she erupted in gooseflesh and cut the shower on hot. She climbed in and let the hot water run down from her head to her toes. She wiggled them in the little bit of water pooled at the bottom of the shower.

Then she heard a thud, and her heart clenched tight in her chest. Terror was not the adrenaline rush she had seen in movies but a moment of pure stillness. She stood motionless.

"Please don't freak out." A thin female voice she had never heard before came across the bathroom, and Lisa opened her mouth to scream but nothing came out. Her throat tightened, and she gripped the shower curtain in her hand to open it and grab the gun but could not make her body obey the commands of her mind.

"I'm not dangerous. I won't hurt you." The voice continued, and its genuine tone did not comfort her. Lisa's body finally lurched into action, ripped open the curtain, grabbed the gun, and pointed it in the direction of the voice. Her eyes locked on a girl, just standing there in the open doorway. The girl was slight, thin and not strikingly tall. Her jeans were tight, her black shirt fitted, and over it, she wore a canvas jacket that would have just been poor fashion on most people. The jacketed look was familiar, though; the girl looked like a Hunter.

"Who are you?" Her hands quivered on the gun's grip, but her voice was surprisingly steady. The girl shifted, but when she did, Lisa saw the edges of her visage shimmer. It happened ever so briefly, just a flicker, but it was enough. The girl was not human. Lisa jerked the gun towards the door. "Nevermind. I don't care. Get out of my house."

The girl - or was it a creature? - had the audacity to chuckle. "You have no idea how long I have been working on getting into your house. I'm a friend of Dean's."

"You're not human." Lisa lowered the gun now - though she did not drop it - and reached for the towel.

"No," The girl held up her hand and waved it back and forth. The movement was just the slightest bit off, blurred just enough at the edges that it was visible but only barely. "I'm dead."

Lisa's skin crawled, imagined cold air whipping along the edges of her skin even as she pulled a towel around herself with trembling fingers. The terrible chill brought realization with it. This girl, slight and young, must be Jo Harvell. For weeks after he had moved in with her and Ben, Dean had cried out names in his sleep. Sometimes he would toss and turn, whispering Sam's name over and over. Other times, he cried for Castiel, his voice hoarse and prayerful as she had never heard it otherwise. But sometimes, he had woken with a start, panting and panicked, and before the sleep had cleared from his face, he had brokenly whispered, "Jo. I have to save Jo." He had told her that Jo had been killed during a battle, downplaying it to a casualty of war, but that quiver in his voice at night, desperation tinged with sadness, spoke of so much more.

"You must be Jo."

The ghost looked surprised. She smiled faintly and nodded, flickering out of sight once and then returning. "Yeah, that's me. I'm guessing you have heard of me."

"You were a friend of Dean's. He was sad." Lisa felt how woefully inadequate those words sounded, but her breath was still caught down in her chest, still stalled at the unbelievability of a ghost appearing in her bathroom. "What are you doing here?"

The ghost's face changed here from the neutrality of small talk to a more stern facial expression. "I worked so hard to be able to appear in this house, and then you cut Dean off after he came here that night."

"He was crazy. He pushed Ben! Ben's my son." Lisa stepped out of the shower now, shivering.

"He was having a bad night."

"Yeah? Well, so was I."

They glared at each other now, as catty as it was, as ridiculous as it was. Jo broke the stalemate first. "Get dressed. I want to show you something."

"No. Get out of my house."

"I'll just come back. Spirits who don't move on are very… determined," Jo half-smiled at her statement. Lisa did not understand why; nothing about this seemed amusing. "We don't have to leave your house for me to show you what I need to show you."

"What is it?"

"I just need you to give Dean a message for me."

"I can do that over the phone in about ten seconds."

"I need you to understand first." Jo's insisted.

"Understand what exactly?"

"Dean. Everything. I just need you to understand." For a second, Jo flickered again, in and out of existence like static on a TV. Knowing full well it was crazy, Lisa felt herself nodding. What else could she do besides acquiesce? She lifted started to walk forward and realized the shower was still running. Just as she turned to cut it off, the knob turned itself. She glanced at Jo who just half-smiled again.

"Just let me go slip on some clothes."

Lisa walked to her bedroom. It took concentration with every step not to give in to her quivering legs and sink to the ground. She was a normal woman, and there was a ghost in her bathroom. She slipped on her clothes from earlier in the day. Her fingers trembled as she zipped and buttoned the jeans, and she glanced over at her cell phone on the table. Dean was just a phone call away. If she dialed and said she needed him, he would be here. He would be driving to save her without waiting for an apology or reassurance or any of the things she guessed he might have wanted. She picked up the phone, found his number, and pressed call.

It rang. The rings seemed slow and loud, coinciding with the thud of her heart. At the starting of his voice, she instinctively smiled.

"You've reached Dean's other, other cell so you must know what to do." It was his voicemail.

"Dean, it's me, Lisa. Listen, I think everything's probably okay, but I've got a… I've got a ghost here." Her voice shook. "She's in my house. Listen, it's…" She heard the sharp hiss of the phone disconnecting and looked up to see Jo in front of her looking annoyed. Her annoyance had this touch of desperation to it, and for a second, she actually looked inhuman, out of step with the normalcy of human facial expressions.

"There was no reason to call Dean. Are you ready?" Jo's voice began cold but warmed quickly. "I'm going to touch you. I'm just going to show you some things; we'll be there, but we won't really be there. We'll really be here. Does that make sense?"

"Like… the ghost of Christmas Past?"

Jo chuckled. "Yeah. Like the ghost of Christmas Past. I pulled in some favors here on the other side of the veil."

Lisa held out her hand tentatively, noticing on it the silver band she wore in place of a wedding ring, a symbol she claimed kept guys from hitting on her but that really she had only put on once Dean had lived with her a few months. She needed to take that off when this was over. Jo reached out and touched her. A ghost's touch is not just cold; instead, it is mingled with the needle-pricking burn of a limb falling asleep. Lisa gritted her teeth at the sensation and closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, she was not in her bedroom. Instead, she was in some bar. It was dirty, run-down, and that strange mix of browns, blacks, and reds that all old honky tonks seem to be. A middle-aged redhead, pretty but hard-looking, was behind the bar, wiping down glasses, and over by the Jukebox was Jo, pushing buttons, apparently looking for the perfect song. Lisa had no idea why she was here. She glanced to her right to see ghost Jo. Seeing Jo as she had been alive in direct contrast with the ghostly vision was jarring. She had been a pretty girl, not beautiful but appealing in her own way, and she had worn stereotypical clothing even then, tight jeans slung low with a little midriff showing over them. Her cheeks had been rosy, her hair luminous. Lisa selfishly thought a prayer that she would never be a ghost, life washed out of her before she was wrung out to dry.

"This was my mother's bar. The Road House. Hunters from all around used to come here. That included the Winchesters, of course." Ghost Jo spoke softly at her side. "Dean's here now. He'll be out of the bathroom in just a minute."

True to her word, Dean emerged from the bathroom a moment later. He looked younger here than she was used to; Lisa supposed years of hard burden had created the slight creases around his eyes and mouth that he carried now. He came over to the bar, took a drink, and sat down to nurse it. Jo at the jukebox looked up at him, and a smile curved over her lips, though she tried to hide it. She started pushing buttons with greater frequency, as if she suddenly knew just what to play.

Lisa watched Dean watch Jo when the girl wasn't looking, eyes following her movements. His gaze was a little hot, a little hungry, but kind as well. Finally, Jo hit the button on the jukebox, and REO Speedwagon's "Can't Fight This Feeling Started". The opening notes of that ballad were always enough to make Lisa remember her younger years; the music spoke of youthful wishful thinking, of that uniquely young wistful love. She remembered hearing it with different names in mind at different times, feeling its feelings so intensely as its music played.

"Oh, I did love this song." Ghost Jo echoed Lisa's thoughts from beside her, and Lisa could not help but smile at the universality of some experiences.

She watched Dean and Jo make eyes at each other across the bar, flirty smiles, slight awkwardness of romantic potential evident. They bantered back and forth, familiarly, and Lisa could not help but laugh at Dean's admission that he was afraid of Jo's mother, who was shooting dirty glances from behind the bar. Lisa was surprised to feel a stir of jealousy, silly since this was nothing but a flirtation. It was nothing compared to her hours of sitting beside Dean while he gripped a whiskey glass and tried to forget, nothing compared to their free-spirited, spontaneous games of catch in the backyard with Ben, nothing compared to the love they had made long into the night. What she was seeing was just evidence that Dean, like every other human, had once been involved in other attractions.

As Dean and Sam loaded up to leave, Jo leaned on the bar and watched them go, chin cradled in her hand. Ghost Jo reached over to touch Lisa's hand again, kickstarting the swirling, pricking sensation. This time she kept her eyes open, watching as the colors around her faded, swirled, and seemed to melt out of her vision. In its place, darkness sprang up. It was pitch black, so dark that it took her several seconds to begin to see anything. The room was circular, metallic, and it looked like a cellar or basement, coated in black grime and dust so thick it turned dark. There was a man, reaching through a slot into a metal bin. He was dressed head-to-toe in black, and his clothes were tattered and dirty. The muffled sounds of female struggle caught Lisa's attention now, and she looked over at her apparative companion in horror. Jo's tightened and slackened as she swallowed.

"Where are we?" Lisa whispered even though she knew that the man could not hear them.

"I snuck onto a hunt with Dean and Sam once. These girls were getting snatched from an apartment complex, all the same type - pretty, blonde, young. Me, basically. Dean and I went off on our own to check things out, and I slipped into a crack to check something out and got snatched by the spook. That's him." Jo murmured as well.

"Dean lost you?"

"I can be stubborn. The ghost - Holmes - is touching me right now. I'm the one in that box."

"Oh God." Lisa felt sick. Suddenly she noticed the lustful, eager stance of the body, the hand in the slot practically vibrating with excitement.

Suddenly the loud crack of a shotgun snapped out, and the grated door to the room slammed open, hinges creaking and rattling. The ghost dissipated, and Dean appeared through the doorway, followed faithfully by Sam. He shouted for Jo, and her desperate voice rang out from inside the metal box. He grabbed a metal rod and started prying her out, wrenching the door open. Lisa noticed that even though Dean reached in to pull Jo out of the box, the girl actually got out and on her feet herself.

"Remember when I said using you as bait was a bad plan? Now it's kind of the only one we've got," Dean was telling her.

"He used you as bait? After that?"

Ghost Jo waved a hand to hush her, and this time, Lisa noticed that Dean was not the point of this moment after all. Jo agreed to be bait. Dirty, scared, hesitant, she agreed seemingly without hesitation.

"You knew he would keep you safe."

"He always keeps people safe. If he can, he will." Her voice was pointed. "That's all we have to see here."

Just like that, Lisa was swirling again, emerging in a new place entirely. It was yet another bar, stools stacked up on tables. Dean and Jo were here - Lisa could see that was the real trend of all of these memories, not just Dean - and Jo was cleaning out a wound on his shoulder. The pair was silent as she worked. She nibbled on her lip as she cleaned, dried, and bandaged the wound. Lisa wondered if Jo was intending to simply show her how in love with Dean the girl had been because so far, that was the lesson of these moments. She was not teaching her anything about Dean that she did not already know; she already knew he was compassionate, strong, desirable. This little Christmas Carol lesson was not showing her anything new.

"What happened to him?"

"Sam was possessed by a demon and came after me. The demon was trying to prove that there was nothing Sam could do that would ever make Dean kill him. In trying to stop the demon and get Sam back, he got shot."

"What happened when he came after you?"

"I was just bait." Ghost Jo's shrug belied a deeper story.

"Yeah. I can see that." Lisa did not mean to be sarcastic.

Now Dean was patched up, and he and Jo were arguing. The tenacious young lady wanted to go with him to stop Sam. Lisa watched him cut her off, raising a hand in a motion that was very familiar to her. He was closing a subject.

"I won't have your blood on my hands." His eyes were soft as he looked at Jo, and the girl accepted his orders, much more obedient than would be expected from a supposedly stubborn girl. Lisa swallowed hard, watching Dean walk for the door and leave Jo to watch him leave.

"He's awfully good at leaving us girls behind," Lisa tried for camaraderie.

"Shut up," Jo hissed.

Lisa looked over at her. "These memories are hard for you."

"No. They're a walk in the freaking park." Ghostly Jo watched her former self watch Dean leave and had to reach up to wipe her eyes. "This one's over. There's only one left." She lifted her hand.

"Wait. You loved him, didn't you? That's the point of all of this."

"I loved him. That's not the point."

They entwined hands again, and the feeling swooped them away again to a dim hardware store. Lisa felt the foreboding before she saw any of the scene; the last one of anything like this was always the worst, and if Jo had stayed behind as a ghost for any reason, it was most likely related to her death. So Lisa felt no surprise, only an expected sadness, when she spotted Jo lying on the floor, hands pressed to a bloody bandage at her side. Her face was pale, streaked with blood and pain, and her legs were stuck out at that unusual, dead angle of paralysis. She was so still it was hardly evident she was breathing. Around her were wires and propane tanks.

"That's a…" Lisa trailed off, clapping her hand to her mouth.

"Homemade bomb. The Winchester boys are good with explosives." Ghost Jo's voice was so soft it was almost inaudible.

"Why?"

"We had hellhounds on our trail, no chance of moving me, no hope of getting out alive… I stayed behind to detonate a bomb once the enemies were inside."

"They agreed to that? Your own mother? Dean?"

"There was no other option," Jo said it with such conviction that Lisa could not argue.

Back in the moment, Sam was stepping away from Jo, apparently having just said his goodbyes. Lisa involuntarily took several steps closer as she watched Dean approach, unwinding wire neatly along the floor before kneeling down.

"Okay. This is it," he spoke slowly, his voice measured. "I'll see you on the other side. Probably sooner rather than later."

Jo managed a faint smile. The exertion made her breath come fast. "Make it later," she murmured, handing him her gun. He stared at it, and Lisa wondered what he was thinking. What thoughts could he possibly have in a moment like this? Then he laid the gun down and picked up Jo's hands. He folded the detonator into her greying hand and clasped it tight in both of his. His knuckles whitened as he held her hands as tenderly as a man taking his bride's at the altar. The look that passed between them was long and broken. Lisa watched him struggle against the weight of everything he was feeling and watched the quiver of Jo's entire face as she tried not to let her fear and loss be his burden. On her face, there were a thousand unseen sunsets, a couple of brown-haired, rough-talking unborn children, and unformed wrinkles; an unlived, oft-dreamed lifetime flickered across that face.

Then Dean leaned down and kissed her forehead, still clutching her hand in his. He pressed his lips to her forehead and used the slight pressure of touch to hold back his own tears, closing his eyes tightly. Lisa's lungs tightened in her chest, watching them fight back against emotions they had no time to realize. When he pulled away, he looked at her again, and this time, Lisa watched those same unrealized wishes appear on his face, for just a moment, before he leaned in and kissed Jo on the mouth. He kissed her gently, so tenderly as not to hurt her, yet even he must have known he was ripping her heart out. They parted, he said "Okay," and walked away, leaving Jo behind with a mother who refused to walk out on her little girl.

Lisa realized she was crying as she watched Ellen sit down beside her girl and wrap their hands together.

"We don't have to stay for the explosion this time," Ghost Jo said from behind her with false lightness in her voice. "This time, I can get us out of here." Lisa turned back to look at her, wiping her cheeks, and took a few steps towards her. She put up her hand first this time.

"I don't want to see you die, Jo. Let's go."

Like the memory behind them, they locked hands together. The room disappeared. Lisa's bedroom resurged around them, familiar, seen a thousand times, and Lisa dropped onto the bed, knees suddenly like jelly. Like Ebenezer Scrooge before her, she felt as though she had lived a lifetime in a few short minutes. How arrogant she had been in the first memory, dismissing their casual flirting and gentle romancing. How benevolent she had felt, releasing her jealousy and acknowledging Jo's feelings. How utterly stupid.

"Now you understand." Jo looked embarrassed now. Her facial expression reminded Lisa of her friends who would have too much to drink and share a little too much of their personal lives.

"Now I understand," Lisa agreed hollowly. No wonder Dean had never told her he loved her; he would probably never tell anyone that for as long as he lived. He had missed the chance to say it once, had not said it to Jo even when it was too late, and now the words were lost to him. She understood now. Jo had stayed behind because she had unfinished business with Dean."I'll tell him I saw you. I'll tell him you loved him."

Jo shook her head, eyes widening. "No. No, that's not why I stayed. You have to tell him it wasn't his fault. You have to tell him that I don't blame him, that I can't go on until I know he forgives himself." Suddenly Jo started flickering, head to toe going in and out rapidly.

"What's happening to you?"

"Fatigue. It's hard work to hold a corporeal form like this for you to see me. I'm fading," Her words were punctuated by blips in and out of appearance. "Please… him… me." She disappeared completely, and the temperature in the room started to rise back up to normal.

Lisa sat there on the edge of the bed a long time, clinging to her blue down comforter. She was too overwhelmed to even have conscious thoughts as the minutes stretched out. Eventually, she laid her head down backwards. When she closed her eyes, she had a brain swirling with images of Dean and Jo, and when she concentrated on her heartbeat, it thumped with shame at her own naïveté. She had felt so certain that she was magical, something for Dean that he could not let go of, something he had clung to for years after their one hot, blissful weekend together. She had preened at the thought of his dedication to her. What woman doesn't want to be The One for a man, even if it doesn't work out? But she had been wrong. He had shown back up on her doorstep because he had been broken so utterly and completely that he had needed help. She had been a nurse, and he valued her, cared for her, tremendously. But that was not the same as being The One. Forever had never been a part of his embraces with Lisa. His fingertips on her skin had never promised eternity. She had been arrogant in thinking that he had loved her most deeply, but she had been wrong. He had already given all his deep love away, in handfuls, in spades - to Sam, to Bobby, to Jo. He had no wellspring like that to tap into now.

She drifted off to sleep to her thoughts.

She awoke later to thudding boot steps. As she opened her eyes and let her hazy vision recover, even yawning widely, she saw Dean running through her bedroom door towards her.

"What happened? Are you okay?" He grabbed her hands and pulled her up, then cupped her cheeks and looked her face over for signs of injury or terror.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm okay."

"Your voicemail… You said there was a ghost and then you just cut off. What happened?"

Lisa looked at his face, beautiful in its concern. He was scruffy, and his eyes were rimmed with tired red and decorated with twin bags. She reached up and touched the rough cheek under her hand and smiled. Tears sprang up in her eyes as she looked at his, remembering the looks she had now seen in them before.

"It was Jo."

He looked as if he had been struck; his whole body stiffened. "What?"

"Jo. She managed to make it here. She had a message for you."

He shook his head. His hands fell from her face to his sides, and then one moved back up slowly to his chin, rubbing it. The absence of the motion was no indication of feeling though. He looked stricken. "No. Jo wouldn't stay behind; she would have moved on. It was a demon or something else, tricking you."

"No. It was Jo. It was really her. She wanted me to tell you," Lisa hesitated slightly, reaching down to find his other hand and hold it in hers, "that it wasn't your fault - her death. It wasn't your fault. She says she can't move on until you forgive yourself."

Dean tilted his head sideways, searching her face for truth. "If it had really been Jo, she'd have known what happened. She would have known that I didn't save her."

"That's not what happened."

"You don't know that."

"I do," Lisa's knees were weak again, and she pulled on his hand, sitting down and bringing him with her. He sat slowly, trance-like in his heavy motions. "She showed me. I saw everything."

His face changed again, and this time, it was as if a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. Suddenly the man whom she had thought she had been bearing burdens for this whole time actually let her hold something. He put his face against her neck for a long moment, and having seen his goodbye to Jo, she knew he was using the intimacy to keep himself together. She cried for him, turning her face into his shoulder. Breathing in the familiar road-weary scent of his jacket, she cried for his loss. On some level, she wanted to cry for what she now realized they had never had, but there would be time for that another night.

"It was my fault," he murmured against the skin of her neck.

"Jo doesn't think so," she whispered back.

"Where is she?" He sat up now, looking around as if she would materialize. "I want to see her."

"She was tired from holding form so long; she lost the grip on doing so and disappeared."

He closed his eyes and cussed under his breath. "Jo, if you can hear me, please listen. The hellhounds weren't my fault, us having to build the bomb wasn't my fault, but you never should have been there. You and Ellen… you should have been anywhere else except hunting Lucifer." He stood up now and looked up at the ceiling as if he were talking to the God he didn't quite believe in.

"Jo didn't deserve to die in that hardware store, and I have to blame someone for the fact that she never got to walk out of there."

He was looking up when Jo materialized again, suddenly, and Lisa felt like an interloper watching him turn towards the sudden glow. He took a few steps towards it and smiled. It was not a real smile, not the kind of smile one thinks of when thinking of smiles. Instead, it was just an involuntary, momentary curve of the lips, a tug of facial expression based on too many criss-crossing emotions.

"Blame God, Dean. He let Lucifer and Michael create the chaos."

"God didn't take you with him."

"You didn't either, jackass," She grinned now, though the smile did not quite reach her eyes. She flickered. "I fought beside you, not behind you. It could have just as easily have been you."

Lisa knew she should move, not just sit on the edge of the bed, silently observing, as much an outsider to this moment as she had been in Jo's memories. She saw Dean's face change as if he had never considered the idea that it could have been him, that it could have been Jo who had placed a detonator in his hand and walked away with Sam.

Jo was watching that changing face too, and suddenly, she started to glow, faintly at first and then brighter. Dean watched her getting brighter, and a tight smile appeared.

"You're moving on."

Jo smiled genuinely now and reached out to touch his face, concentration etched in her eyes. Dean jumped as her touch made physical contact. "I'll see you on the other side."

She vanished with her fingers against his cheek, fading out softly in a warm ball of light and then simply falling from vision. He reached up to where her touch had been and put his fingers there.

Long moments stretched out between them before Dean finally turned to Lisa, eyes guarded. She reached out for his hand and wrapped it in hers. There were no words or actions left for right now. Lisa missed the simple heartbreak with which she had begun her evening, but she could not have traded it for what she had now. She finally understood.


End file.
